Today is the day that AMD fans have been waiting for since AMD announced the multi-core Phenom as their next processor. Some have been holding out against the Core 2 Duo and Quad in the hopes that the Phenom will crush Intel in the home market for the next few years. We don’t know that this will happen but we do know that everything rides on this processor. If AMD don’t get it right, this is the last time we could see them in this sector.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
This is where hardware reviewers come in. Finally we’d have some solid figures to go on and all we’d have to do is to wait the see how efficient the processor actually is. Naturally, most of the hardware reviewers that would have got their hands on the AMD Phenom for these demonstrations would have played them off against the Core 2 from Intel. Some did.
If you aren’t aware, Intel smashed AMDs original dual core technology out of the market with the Core 2, which did everything faster, cooler and more power efficient than AMDs Athlon range. AMD didn’t recover from this very well initially and in a panic they dropped prices in an attempt to compete with Intel, failed at this and so brought ATI, claiming that the company had technology and knowledge crucial to helping them develop a brand new multi-core processor.
Along comes the Phenom.
I’m an AMD fan. Ever since the Athlon, I’ve been stroking AMDs e-peen and waving my hands around madly about the Phenom, even though I have a Core 2 solution currently. The original Athlon range of processors allowed for massive amounts of overclocking and ran fairly cool, something that Intel at the time couldn’t grasp. Granted, the Core 2 slightly changes that with Intel finally realising how to go about making a massively diverse CPU that allows for overclocking and that runs cool and is power efficient. The Phenom however, created a sense of hope inside me that AMD could crush Intel’s idea of diversity with an even cooler, even faster and even more power efficient multi-core processor. That is exactly what they told us in the press release that brought the news of the Phenom.
Sadly however, that isn’t quite what happened.
On launch, the AMD Phenom will not be launching at 2.6ghz as AMD said it would. In fact, the AMD Phenom will be launching at an insignificant 2.2ghz and 2.3ghz and you’ll be lucky if you get hold of one. AMD don’t have enough to go round apparently and despite the fact that motherboards have been appearing all over the place with the new RD790, it appears Phenoms won’t be appearing all over the place to compliment them. There are so few Phenoms in fact, that no major reviewer or media outlet actually has a finished Phenom…
Instead of sending the chip to reviewers, AMD sent the reviewers to the chip – a highly overclocked version of their launch chip and it looks like the reviewers were a little narked at that…
Another bit of bad news for AMD is that Intel have put a new CPU into the mix, just to spoil AMDs launch party. Not wanting to give anything away but quite frankly, it does spoil AMDs launch party, quite efficiently, because Intel actually sent the chip to media outlets and hardware reviewers 2 weeks ago despite the fact that it lanches Q1 2008...
Horribly for AMD, in the majority of cases and test (though limited in number) the Phenom's performance is the single most shocking thing I've ever seen... in a bad way. If these inital tests are anything to go by, AMD have well and truly messed up and the only way I can see them holding out is through efficient pricing and advertising campaigns.
The sad thing is that Intels faster CPUs out now and their new multi-cores coming out next year aren't pushing the Core 2 technology and if Intel really wanted, they could launch a faster, better processor right now...
Woe is me :-(
Now as you will notice, I’ve stayed away from numbers in this article. That’s because it isn’t meant to be a technically complex nerd-fest and more of a this-is-what-happens-fest. If you want to really know what to expect from the Phenom on launch, read this and cringe.
